Increasing numbers of prophetic voices within the Church see evidence of God’s creative dynamism in the process of evolution. As this approach grips the Catholic imagination, it opens up vibrant new possibilities for evangelisation What have Copernicus, Galileo and Darwin in ­common? All three scientists suffered some bruising encounters with the church authorities of their time. Each of them experienced extreme difficulties in having their scientific discoveries accepted. In 1988, conscious of this past “failure in dialogue”, St John Paul II asked the partici­pants of a conference in Rome this question: “Does an evolutionary perspective bring any light to bear upon theology, the meaning of the human person as the Imago Dei, and upon the development of doc